One of the things that this new go-round of films might consider is taking the plots from the novels, many of which have completely different stories than the films which share their titles. They did that with CASINO - which is very much like the novel, down to Bond getting his testicles whipped.
I hope this film is better than the last one - with that henchman who rivals Odd Job named Bowl Cut (or something) and that plot to do whatever it was they were doing. It seemed like the idea of hiring Marc Forster completely backfired and they ended up with the KITE RUNNER version of Bond. I think this concept of finding art house directors is just a mistake - and when you look at the directors who made the Bond films that brought the series back from failure, we're talking about... Martin Campbell (GOLDENEYE and CASINO). The other directors who have made big money Bond films tend to be action guys. The art house director experiment often fails - and I wonder whether AMAZING SPIDER-MAN will work. It's as if Hollywood is unable to figure out who actually has the skills to pull off a movie, so they make what they think is a creative decision to hire the *least likely* director to make this kind of film and hope that director who has maybe done some art house dramas can pull off a big action-based franchise film. See, that doesn't even make sense when you type it.
I think the reason why SKYFALL *may* have a chance at working is that Sam Mendes has done REVOLUTIONARY ROAD... but also ROAD TO PERDITION (arty - but with action scenes). But he's still not even on the list of directors I would ever consider to make a Bond film. An action film is all about the action - the story is *told* through the action. So you can't just hand that stuff off to some second unit guy - the DIRECTOR needs to understand action scenes. Someone like Roger Spottiswood or Martin Campbell know action, but Marc Forster didn't seem to have a clue.
Remember how we got Indiana Jones? Spielberg wanted to direct a Bond film... he was the hottest director in town, and they turned him down. When he told Lucas about this, Lucas came up with a project for Spielberg to direct that would be "better than Bond". Imagine the Spielberg Bond film!
- Bill
2 comments:
I'd argue the biggest problem with Quantum of Soulless was the script, possibly some unintended collateral damage from the writers' strike?
Then again, several Bonds have suffered from mediocre second films. The Man With the Golden Gun. Licence to Kill. Tomorrow Never Dies.
From Russia With Love is the honorable exception...
Licence To Kill was actually pretty good - except for a too small climax, and a silly subplot about a television preacher which got in the way and provided unfunny humor. And Tomorrow Never Dies is the only Brosnan Bond I like (though the villain isn't strong enough).
QoS had a dreadful script and an action director who wrongly feels that extreme shakey-cam is a good thing. Luckily he didn't mess up in MI:4. And the plot was far too small in scale (Bolivian water monopoly. Woo hoo).
And of course they threw most of what was good about the Bond franchise out of the window when they cast Daniel Craig. Jason Isaacs would have been a far, far better Bond all around.
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